Discovery
by powerofthepen123
Summary: What would happen if, while camping in Colorado for a long weekend, Brendan and Catherine accidentally witnessed some draki flying? Set in the beginning of Book Two.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Firelight, Sophie Jordan does. However, I do own the Singh, Murphy, Rodrigues, and Stone families, as well as the rest of their pride. I also own Green Healing and Selena's Cafe

It's amazing, how beautiful the world looks when you're 150 feet above the ground and surrounded by green.

I've been higher than this, of course, but usually then I'm constantly moving, constantly positioning my body to perfectly glide on the wind and beating powerful wings of emerald to keep myself above the ground.

Now, I can just be still and enjoy the energy of the earth, the arms of the girl I love wrapped around me.

"It really is beautiful here," Blue whispered, burying her face in my hair. In a few seconds, I heard a quiet snuffling noise.

"Are you sniffing my hair?" I asked in amusement.

"You smell like flowers," she retorted. "And, Aiya, honey, don't ruin the moment."

I cuddled back into Blue's breasts. "Yes, ma'am."

Then all talk ceased and we sat in silence among the beauty of the night. Everything was perfect, just the two of us and the forest.

"Aiya?" Blue asked.

"Hmm?" I murmured.

"I have something to show _you_ now," she murmured.

I looked up at her, brown eyes meeting blue as her face lit up with enthusiasm. I didn't want to put a damper on things, but this seemed pretty perfect to me already. "Sweetheart, you don't have to do anything. I love just being with you."

She kissed my cheek. "I _want _to."

And then she manifested.

Draki in general are beautiful when we manifest, all jeweled scales and raw, earthy energy. But Blue Murphy's sapphire scales glinting under the moon, her inhuman azure eyes glowing with love, were absolutely breathtaking.

She spread her wings, a thousand incredible shades of blue and turquoise, and flew to the nearby pond. Stopping to hover in midair, Blue then shot down, spinning her powerful body. Water flew up, swirling in the air. As my girlfriend soared back into the air, water spun and shone beneath her.

I gasped.

"Glad you like it," she called to me in our tongue. "You have no idea how…"

"No, it's not that," I hissed. "Don't get me wrong, love, that was beautiful, but did you hear that?"

Blue soared back over to me. "A crack of a tree branch, maybe, but it's probably just a raccoon or something…"

"No…" I murmured. "Something else. Blue, maybe we should go home…"

"Aiya, you're just being paranoid!" she teased, laughing a bit nervously.

"Raccoons don't make footsteps like that," I responded in fear.

And then we saw the source of the noise. Or, rather, _sources._ Two human teenagers stood across from us, shining their flashlight on us and looking as scared as we felt.

We had been spotted. I dared not speak.

"Brendan," the girl whispered, her voice trembling in fear, "please tell me that's not what I think it is." She clutched her boyfriend's arm in terror.

Brendan, the boy, looked like he was about to wet himself in fear. "Catherine, I think we just found a dragon."

I sighed in relief. Well, they weren't hunters at least. Just two average humans, completely mistaken about what they'd seen.

Just then, the boy cupped his hands in front of his mouth and called out. "HEY!"

My eyes widened in terror, and Blue and I tried as hard as possible to make ourselves invisible. _Why _couldn't we have been stealth draki, like our friend Jasper?

This guy was either incredibly stupid or incredibly brave. True, draki were normally a peaceful species, but weren't humans supposed to be afraid of us or something? They seemed to think we would eat them, given the chance. I had never understood it; but then, the only human I had ever been close to was my mother, and she had disappeared when I was a baby. We had no idea what happened to her.

"HEY!"

"Brendan, don't be an idiot," the girl snapped. I laughed out loud and decided I liked this human, this Catherine. She had guts, if she could be this feisty when faced with a creature that she had previously assumed was merely a mythical beast.

"Cat, there's a girl…" he gestured wildly in my direction.

I curled up, hoping against hope that I could suddenly change from verda to stealth. Maybe my dark coloring would hide me in the night.

"HEY! Hey, you!" the boy said.

I grimaced and mouthed to Blue _hide. _She nodded and flew off, but I sensed that she remained close enough to protect me if needed. The idea of it made me feel warm inside.

Then I spoke. To a human.


	2. Chapter 2

I know, seriously risky, but if I didn't, he would just keep hollering and possibly bring _more _humans, and that was the _last_ thing I needed. So I spoke.

"YEAH?" I yelled.

Brendan sighed in relief. "ARE YOU OKAY!?"

"I'M FINE."

"OKAY. WHAT'S YOUR NAME?"

"AIYA!" Then I froze. Panicked. What was I thinking, giving information like that to a human? _Two _of them, no less. Sure, maybe _they _weren't hunters, but maybe they knew someone who was. Or, like, an enkros or something. And now they had a name to connect to the local draki. An uncommon name, too.

"MAYA, WHAT WAS THAT THING?!" Catherine yelled, having misheard me. I decided to go with it. If these humans thought my name was Maya, it was probably for the best.

"I DON'T KNOW!" I lied.

"WHERE'S YOUR FAMILY?" Brendan demanded.

In truth, I didn't know where my mother was, my father had been dead nearly ten years, and I had only Selena. Selena and the pride. The pride, which would be in grave danger if I didn't get these humans out of here…

"ASLEEP!" Well, she _was. _I hadn't lied there. However, my sister would be furious if she found out my girlfriend and I had been spotted.

"HANG ON, LET US GET OVER THERE!" Brendan yelled, and they hurried over to me.

The two humans soon stood at the base of my tree, obviously wondering how I'd managed to get myself up there.

_Well, there's no avoiding them now. _I pulled my hood up and zipped the fleece jacket. Hiding my hair, keeping my face down, keeping my body as covered as possible – if I was going to be up close to these humans who had the ability to destroy my entire life, I was going to do it on my terms. Then I climbed down, purposely taking my time.

"Good, you're okay," Catherine said, but it was a question. "Maya, what do you think that giant blue thing was?"

"I think her name's Aiya, not Maya," said Brendan.

"No, it's Maya," Catherine said confidently.

"Which is it, Aiya or Maya?" Brendan asked.

"Maya," I lied.

"Told you so," said Catherine teasingly to her boyfriend. "So, _Maya, _what was up with that thing? I've never seen anything like it before."

"We think it's a dragon," Brendan offered.

"It's not," I said without thinking. _Just _descended _from dragons._

"Maybe not, but wouldn't it be _so _awesome, if it was?" Catherine mused. "Just, like, the fact that dragons exist."

"As long as they don't eat anyone," Brendan added.

"Do you know where your camp site is?" Catherine changed the subject.

"Yeah. I can get there on my own."

"But what about bears and wolves and stuff?" Brendan asked, crinkling his brow.

"Bears and wolves almost never actually attack people. You know that, right? If you provoke them, damn right you'll get hurt but provoking them would be pretty stupid anyway."

"And the blue thing?" Catherine prompted. "Even if it's not a dragon, weren't you scared when it was _right in front of you_?"

I shrugged and played with my sleeve, nervously trying to come up with an appropriate response. Obviously, _I'm dating the blue thing _wouldn't do.

"Well…I…I guess…"

Brendan studied me with crinkled brow, mistaking my nervousness for something else. "Wow, you must be in shock or something. Do you want to come back with us? We have walkie-talkies here, and cell phones back at our campsite. You can call your parents, let them know you're okay…"

"They're dead," I replied, again without thinking. Well, it was only a half-lie. My father was killed by hunters, and for all I knew my mother _could _be dead. "No, it's okay. I'll be fine on my own."

"But…wait, who are you staying with?" said Catherine.

"My sister. Seriously, I'll be fine." And then I turned and ran, hoping they wouldn't follow.


	3. Chapter 3

Not surprisingly, I didn't sleep for the rest of that night. Also not surprisingly, my boss noticed even when I tried to hide it.

Kimiko Rodrigues was a full verda draki in her early forties, a beautiful woman who by human standards barely looked older than a teenager. But she had five sons, three of whom were older than me, and a baby granddaughter. So she had a bit of a maternal complex, not only with her family but with _everyone_ younger than her. It was a good trait in a verda, the healing breed of draki, but when that verda had appointed herself _your _second mother? It got a bit annoying, how perceptive she was.

Even while our first customer of the day, a stealth woman named Magdalene who needed chamomile for her colicky baby son Gareth, was in our little shop, Kim kept giving me strange glances.

And after Magdalene left, she didn't hesitate to confront me about it.

"Okay, Aiya, you look exhausted and overstressed, and it's way too early in the day for that," she said. "What happened?"

I looked at the ground.

"Is it Blue? I know you girls had a date last night."

"Not exactly." I took a breath. "Kim, what would happen if a human had seen us? Not a hunter, just two ordinary humans. Kids, maybe my age."

"Aiya. What. Exactly. _Happened._"

"Nothing! Nothing really important anyway…I think. I hope. We were in this tree, and I had my wings in and everything, and Blue was in human form and we were just sitting there cuddling, and she did this thing where she made the water spin with her wings, and then I heard a noise and she thought I was just being paranoid and then we saw these two human kids come out of the woods and…" I forced the whole thing out in one breath.

I saw the alarm in Kim's expression, but she forced herself to remain calm. "Okay. Aiya, one word at a time. Panicking won't help anyone."

I nodded and forced myself to slow down. "There's no way they could have known that we can look human, because I was keeping my scales and eyes hidden and everything, and Blue didn't de-manifest, but she did hide so they couldn't see her. So the two kids, I guess they thought I was in danger or something, because the boy just kept calling to me. They asked my name…"

"Full name?"

"No, they just asked, and I quote, 'What's your name?' So I told them Aiya, but they misheard me and thought I said Maya. I didn't correct them."

Kim nodded approvingly. "That was smart of you. What happened next?"

"They thought I was in shock, and they tried to get me to go with them. I said no and told them I'd be fine, and then I ran and they didn't follow me."

"Okay. We should be fine, but Aiya, you have to tell Joss about this."

Joss was our alpha and my friend Adrian's father. He was a good, fair leader who was genuinely concerned with the safety of the pride, but he also strongly distrusted humans. Even with six hybrids in our midst, no human had ever been a pride member. And I didn't want to risk Brendan and Catherine's safety. They were innocent.

"Why does he need to know?" I pleaded, a hint of a whine in my voice. "They don't have any evidence that we even exist, and no one's going to believe a couple of teenagers just on their word. We're not in danger."

"No, but they _have _linked a girl with your description…"

"It was dark. They couldn't see me that well. I had my jacket zipped and the hood up, and I never looked them in the face."

"And because it was dark, they had a flashlight."

I bit my lip, and Kim continued brutally.

"However, _you _likely didn't, because you didn't need one. And, Aiya, that means that what these humans saw was a sixteen-year-old girl, alone. At night. In the woods. Without a flashlight. They're going to find that suspicious. I lived among humans for years, Aiya. They're going to wonder about you, maybe even tell their parents about you. And there isn't a damn thing we can do about that."

An onyx named Beck walked into the shop for some tea, and Kim got up to greet him, shooting me a look that said _we'll talk about this later._


	4. Chapter 4

After I finally got Kim to agree (reluctantly) to let me handle the situation on my own terms, I called Blue to ask her to meet me at Selena's Cafe after work. I didn't give any details, just made it seem like I wanted a pleasant afternoon with my girlfriend. Which I did, of course, but I also felt like Blue and I needed to discuss what had happened and maybe come up with a plan. At present, I didn't feel like Brendan and Catherine meant us any harm, but just in case, I wanted to be ready. And I didn't want Joss to know what was going on. Not yet.

Since the cafe was just down Main Street (or as much of a Main Street as our tiny pride village had), only a few buildings down from Green Healing, it didn't take me long to arrive. I ordered a papaya iced tea for myself and a strawberry-banana smoothie for her (it was her favorite) and sat down in a booth to wait for my girlfriend.

A few minutes after I'd arrived, Blue rushed in, looking adorable in an oversized hot pink pullover hoodie emblazoned in lime green and sky blue with the words I Swim like a Girl, and a pair of damp jeans and sneakers. Her caramel blond hair was loose around her shoulders and dripping wet. I smiled at my favorite water draki as she kissed me on the cheek and sat down.

"Sorry I'm late," she apologized, squeezing her hair a bit. "You know."

"Water," I said, and we both giggled. Sure, it wouldn't have been very funny to any other girls, but these little things about her just made her smile.

Blue looked down at her smoothie cup and smiled warmly. "You got me a smoothie! That's so sweet, Aiya. Thank you." She pulled it closer and sipped.

"Blue, I think we need to talk about last night."

"What's this about last night?" my sister asked as she walked up to us.

"Not _that, _Selena," Blue said, blushing.

"You _know _it's nothing," I said, my face feeling as red as Blue's looked.

"It's never going to _be _that, either," she added, and I smiled a bit. While I knew that some asexuals had sex to please their partners, it made me happy that Blue wouldn't ask that of me. "And even if it was, it's not like you'll ever need to worry about there being a baby involved."

Selena laughed. "Good. I'm not ready to be an auntie. I'll leave you two to continue this romantic afternoon in peace." She walked away, and silently I thanked her for being so amazing. Even when she was just a teenager and I was a little girl, she was the best sister I could ever have hoped for. Now, she was the best role model, guardian, and friend. When she was just barely out of college, she'd taken on the stress of raising a grieving seven-year-old while she was still mourning her father and stumbling into womanhood without a mother's guidance. I would always be grateful for that.

After we were sure that my sister – or anyone else – wouldn't be able to hear, Blue leaned forward. "Aiya, those kids. What if they tell someone?"

"I told Kim what happened. She says there's nothing we can do about that right now."

"_What_? What if she tells someone?"

"She's really freaked out, but she's letting us handle this as long as we actually _do _handle it. Blue, if we don't handle this, she's going to tell Joss."

Blue sighed. "Look, Aiya, I think we need to go back to that pond. We need to try to find those humans."

I reached across the table and took her hand in my own. "Yeah. We do. But my sister thinks we're on a date, and so do your parents. Unless we want to make them suspicious, we need to at least finish our drinks."

"Drink fast," Blue advised, squeezing my hand and looking deep into my eyes.

I nodded.


	5. Chapter 5

After finishing our drinks and making a bit of nervous small talk, we let my sister and Blue's parents know where we were going – but not why – paid, and took off as fast as we could without seeming suspicious.

It probably only took about ten minutes to bike to our tree, but the anticipation was killing us both. The short ride seemed to take hours.

And when we got there, we saw the two humans. Brendan and Catherine, the people who now unwittingly held our lives in their hands. The lives of all draki, potentially. Our secret of shape shifting to human form was all that kept us safe from hunters and enkros.

"Aiya," she whimpered, clutching my arm.

I hummed a bit to calm her down. "It's okay. Let's just talk to them and see what they want. By the way, I gave them a fake name. Maya. You should probably do the same."

Blue nodded, slowly releasing her grip. "I'll tell them my name's Lou. Short for Louise."

"Louise? Baby Blue, you really would have had some horrid parents if they'd named you _that_," I joked, knowing about her secret hatred for the name Louise.

She smiled at my attempt to relieve the tension. "Whatever. _We'll _know what it means, and that's the important thing."

"True. Hey, here's an idea," I said, rolling with the 'make Blue smile' idea. "Let's start making out right in front of them. Maybe they're homophobes and they'll just run off screaming. Then we'll never have to see them again!"

She burst out laughing. "Damn, that really shouldn't seem so funny, but it does. I love you, Aiya."

Her sapphire eyes widened for a moment as she realized what she'd said. We both knew how we felt, but this was both of our first relationships and neither of us had ever actually _vocalized _our feelings for each other before. She'd only come out a few months ago, before asking me out the first time. Dating, coming out, saying 'I love you,' it was all scary. But it was our lives, and just like this, we'd get through it together. And we wouldn't give a _damn _what the haters thought in the process.

I squeezed her hand reassuringly and grinned. "I love you too, Blue. And we'll get through this together, okay?"

She grinned back. "Okay."

"I love you. Now, let's face down our demons…"

"I'm pretty sure they'd think _we're _the demons, if they only knew," she interrupted.

"Same difference," I waved off her comment, which was accurate enough to send shivers down my spine. "Well, there's no point in putting it off any longer."

We both took a breath for courage and began to approach the humans.

"Hey," said Brendan, studying me, "I remember you. You're that girl from last night. Maya, right?"

I nodded. "This is Lou. It's, um, good to see you guys again."

He smiled at us. "You too, Maya. Nice to meet you, Lou."

Blue looked at him a little warily, but offered a tentative smile. Unlike me, she was fully draki and almost never left pride grounds. "Hi."

"I don't think we introduced ourselves last night," Catherine told us. "I'm Catherine, and this is Brendan."

"Hi," I said awkwardly.

"So how do you guys know each other?" Brendan asked. After all, with my dark coloring, and Blue's golden hair and iridescent sapphire eyes, we obviously weren't sisters.

"We're, um, dating," Blue said quietly, a little scared. She'd never been shy about our relationship before, but these were humans. Who knew how they'd react to two girls dating?

"That's cool," Catherine told her with a smile.

"What about you? Are you dating too?" I asked.

They both laughed a little. "No offense to Cat here, but there's literally _no _chance of that happening," Brendan said.

Catherine smirked. "I'm a fag hag. _Brendan's _hag, that is."

"Damn right, bitch," he said, jokingly tossing his head and snapping his fingers with a flamboyant flair.

All four of us roared with laughter, though it wasn't even that funny. This was just the natural camaraderie you felt around someone you'd just met and already knew would be a friend.

"So where are you from?" I asked as our chortles died down, half-hoping they were from somewhere far away so they couldn't come back and find us.

"Chaparral, Arizona," Catherine responded.

"Do you guys live around here?" Brendan asked.

"No," I answered quickly. "We're from Denver."

"Denver's nice," said Catherine approvingly. "Wow, that sounded dorky."

Blue smiled shyly at the two humans. "It's okay. I have dorky moments too."

"Does the heat bother you, in Arizona?" I asked. Did humans get bothered by that thing? I'd never asked one before and had no way of knowing.

"No more than the cold bothers you here," Brendan said with a shrug. "We have…had…this friend, Jacinda, from Colorado, and she hated the heat. I guess it just depends on what you're used to."

"Had?" Blue inquired.

"She hasn't been in school for the past few days. Her boyfriend says her family moved, but he didn't know where. I guess they're back in Colorado now. It's weird, though. Like they just dropped off the face of the planet. She didn't say goodbye, or even mention she was leaving."

"It sucks," Catherine complained. "She was one of, like, five people at our school who was actually cool."

"Coming from Catherine, that's a high compliment," Brendan told us.

Blue chuckled. We'd definitely felt the same way about our friends that Catherine and Brendan had about this Jacinda.

"You know what else is weird?" I prompted, _finally _getting to the point. "That blue thing."

Catherine shrugged. "Yeah, and you didn't even react to it, really. You just sat there until it went away."

"Blue thing?" Blue asked, pretending to be completely oblivious.

"Yeah, Catherine and I were hiking last night, and we were kind of lost. Which sucked, you know?"

We both nodded sympathetically. Neither of us ever strayed too far from the pride lands, but it had to be frightening to be lost in the woods at night.

"So we come across this giant blue thing with wings, just hovering in front of a tree, and I swear to God it looked like a dragon. I know it sounds stupid…"

Blue looked only a bit uneasy as she muttered, "It doesn't sound stupid."

They exchanged glances, looking a bit surprised. Obviously, they'd expected her to laugh or scoff or something.

"Okay," Brendan said. "So then we see Maya sitting in the tree, just completely calm. Which scared the hell out of me, you know? To see someone just sitting like that, so totally Zen, when there's a fifteen-foot dragon cornering them. So, like an idiot, I start yelling for her to come down from there. I honestly think half the reason she even answered was to get me to shut up."

"Only half?" I teased him.

Catherine gave a little laugh and continued the story. "Long story short, we talked for a while and Brendan got it into his head that Maya was in shock and asked if she wanted to come back with us. She said no and left."

Brendan shook his head. "What _was _that blue thing?"

I refused to look at him. "Can we not talk about this anymore?"

Catherine studied me. "Are you afraid of the dra-blue thing?"

"Um…yes," I replied.

Brendan looked at me sympathetically. "I don't blame you. Who _wouldn't _be afraid of that thing?"

"You're not planning to _do _anything about what you saw, right? Because that would just be crazy," Blue said hopefully.

"I'm not," Catherine said. "Who would even believe me?"

"Me neither," Brendan agreed. "Like Catherine said, no one would believe us. And I don't see any reason to disturb that thing."

"You know, we might as well just call it what it is. It's big, it's scaly, and it has wings. Last I checked, that makes it a dragon," Catherine declared.

Great. Just great.


	6. Chapter 6

(Catherine PoV)

"Is it just me, or was there something...off...about those girls?" Brendan asked, his brow furrowed.

"No, they were weird," I agreed. "Like, Lou, the blonde one, she almost never talked. Did you notice that?"

"Shyness," he replied with a shrug. "Jacinda was the same way."

"Yeah," I remembered. "What happened to her, anyway? Why did she even need to move back? Actually, come to think of it, she never actually told us why she moved to Chaparral in the first place. She was always pretty secretive."

"Yeah, that was a little strange," he muttered. "There was just something about her, something I could never put my finger on. Reminds me of Lou and Maya."

"Brendan..." I hissed, grabbing his arm. "Did you hear that?"

We both stopped walking for a moment. It sounded like wingbeats. _Really big_ wingbeats. Moreover, two sets of _really big_ wingbeats.

"Dragons," I breathed in awe and fear.

"Either that," Brendan replied, a little freaked out himself, "or they're escapees from a James Patterson book. Cat, look." **(A/N:** **Yes, that is in fact a Maximum Ride reference. Hey, if Galen were a blind, fourteen-year-old ginger, he could totally be Iggy. And Jasper could be Fang. XD)**

I took a closer look. No, not dragons. Not exactly. Just two shirtless teenage boys. You know, with dragon wings. Flying, and joking around.

Then the bigger one turned to the smaller one – his little brother, I presumed – and as he did so, he caught a glimpse of us. I couldn't really see his expression, but when he nudged the other boy and pointed to us, I could tell they weren't happy about being seen.

(Galen pov)

"Dude, I…I think we've been spotted," I hissed to my brother, Jasper.

"What? Please tell me you're kidding," he begged. "If this gets back to Joss, we're so screwed. Galen, this is the kind of thing that gets people's _wings _clipped."

"You think I don't know that?" I snapped. "Look at them."

He turned slightly to look at the humans – two harmless-looking teenagers, about fifteen or sixteen. "Shit. Yeah, they see us."

"You think?" I said sarcastically.

"Shut up, Galen. Freaking out isn't going to do us any good." Jasper sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Look, let's just be glad they don't have cameras or something."

"Don't jinx it," I grunted. "We have a few options here, Jas. We can make a fly for it, hope they don't tell anyone…"

"Don't tell anyone? If I saw two random winged dudes, I'd tell someone," he retorted. "Galen, they're gonna tell someone. And so what if they do? No one's going to believe them without proof."

"We can go to Joss about it…"

With one glance, we knew _that _wasn't even an option. Sure, Joss was my best friend's dad, but he had a pretty big thing against humans and wasn't too thrilled with half-breeds like us either.

"Or we can confront them."

Jasper flinched, but nodded. "I think that might be a good idea. Better than the other ones, anyway."

"Shut up, Jasper." I looked at the humans, who were currently just staring at us. A guy and a girl, maybe Jasper's age or a bit younger. _Harmless, _I told myself, unconvincingly. Sure, I'd lived around humans as a little kid, but I didn't even remember that. After my asshole of a father ditched us, my mom and brothers and I had moved to our current pride. Since then, the closest I'd been to a human was the few times I visited one of their towns and talked to their cashiers or waiters. Half-breeds didn't count; I already was one. So, sure, maybe they freaked me out. A little.

Or a lot.

But that didn't mean I was scared, okay? I just didn't want to deal with these two idiots. What kind of humans wandered through the woods, off-trail, in an area that they probably weren't familiar with? They were a species with _no natural defenses, _for crying out loud.

_Hunters_? I wondered. No, that was stupid. They didn't look like hunters…wait, what did a hunter look like anyway?

"Now's as good a time as any," my little brother said, and began to slow the beat of his wings so he'd land safely.

Great. I had to talk to them _now. _If they were hunters or something, Mom would kill me for letting Jasper near them alone.

I landed near him. The humans, still staring, seemed just as freaked out by us as we were by them. The girl was frozen with fear and the guy had tried to bolt.

_Damn_. That kid had seen _evidence _of draki. Worse, of the fact that we could appear as humans. That secret was pretty much all that kept our people safe from the _actual_ humans who would do us harm…or worse, the enkros. There were _seven billion _humans, and only a few thousand draki – at the most. And the humans had technology on their side. Technology that could potentially block our powers, our only methods of self-defense. Humans could wipe us out if they wanted to, and we'd be completely at their mercy if they tried. But they didn't exactly have a track record of mercy.

And the enkros? We'd all heard the horror stories. Cages. Torture. Dissection. But no one actually knew what the enkros were or what they did for sure. Let me put it like this, though: no draki captured by the enkros _ever _came home.

"I'll get the guy, you try to talk to the girl," I told Jasper. "Try to calm her down. Reason with her. Hell, flirt if you have to."

He looked a little aghast at the suggestion of flirting. It wasn't that Jas didn't flirt, he just flirted with guys. And he had no clue _how _to charm a girl (unless you counted Aiya Singh, a fellow half-breed, but she'd been his best friend since age seven and was practically family). But he straightened his shoulders. "I'll see what I can do."

I ran to the guy, and with my draki power it didn't take me long to overtake him.

Unfortunately, that meant pretty much bulldozing the poor dude, who was a good few inches shorter than me, a couple years younger, and kind of scrawny. And, you know, human.

As we hit the ground, the guy shoved me off of him and tried to scramble away. I went after him, picked him up, and held him by his shoulders. As I pinned him against a tree trunk, the scent of his fear filled my nostrils.

"I'm not gonna hurt you, man," I tried to reassure him. He looked up at me doubtfully. "Okay, I know that's kind of hard to believe right now. But really, it's okay. I'm harmless, I swear." The poor guy was shaking like a Chihuahua. "I just want to talk to you about what you saw. I'm going to let you go now, but you can't scream or run. Is that okay?"

He nodded.

"Okay," I breathed out in relief and released my grip on him. He slid to the ground. I knelt down to his eye level and tried to offer a friendly smile, hoping my fangs weren't out. "What's your name?"

"Brendan."

"Okay, good. You talked, Brendan. We're making progress here. I'm Galen, and that other guy over there is my brother Jasper."

"Okay."

"So. What you saw. Two dudes with wings, right? You must be pretty freaked out right now."

"I saw a dragon once."

"You…you saw…" Exactly _how _many draki had this kid seen? "Okay. A dragon. Let's go with that. What did this dragon look like?"

"It was blue."

Probably a water draki, then. Relatively common breed. There were a bunch of those in the pride. Shit, it could even be Yasser, my youngest brother. The kid was almost thirteen and had just manifested for the first time a couple weeks ago. And he'd probably been pretty tempted to test out his wings. But without any of us there?

"Alright. What shade of blue?"

"Different shades. Kind of looked like water."

Yeah, a water draki. The few times a human had ever recorded seeing one of them, they'd said it looked like water. "When did you see this dragon?"

"Last night. There was a girl there."

"That girl you were with a couple minutes ago?"

"No. A different girl."

"What did the girl look like?"

"I couldn't get a real good look at her at first. She had her hood up and wouldn't look at me. But I could tell she had black hair. She's tan. I think Indian."

_Aiya. _Which meant that the draki with her was probably Blue Murphy, Aiya's fully draki girlfriend.

"About how tall?"

"Uh, about an inch shorter than me. So around five seven."

"What else do you remember about the girl?"

"She didn't seem freaked out by the dragon. I mean, I thought she was at first, but Catherine didn't."

"And Catherine's that girl with you?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. Are you and Catherine planning to do anything about all this strange stuff you've been seeing?"

"No. Who would even believe us?"

I almost fell over in relief. "Great! That's great."

"Because you don't want anyone finding out about you?"

I blinked. "Well, yeah."

"Are there more of…whatever you are? Besides you and your brother?"

"No," I lied. I wanted to keep this kid in the dark about our kind, as much as I could at this point anyway.

"What are you?"

"We're…half-breeds, okay?" True, but I hadn't mentioned anything about dragons or draki. We _were _half-breeds, sons of a human father and draki mother, but I saw no reason to rat my mom out. Or my other three brothers, for that matter.

"So, if there's no more half-breeds, then what are your parents?"

"My dad's human."

"And your mom? That's why you're called half-breeds, isn't it? Your mom's not human. What is she?"

"My mom's my mom," I snapped, my protective instincts kicking in. if this kid kept asking about my mother, things would get ugly. Any of my brothers – or my sister-in-law, Katya - would have felt the same if some human kid started prying about our family.

Brendan's eyes widened in fear. I sighed.

"Look, I don't want to scare you, but lay off about my family, all right? I'm a half-breed, Jasper's a half-breed, and that's the end of it. We just get a little protective, but leave our family alone and we won't hurt you."

"Okay. I won't tell anyone, you know, except Catherine. But she won't tell either. It's cool, if your mom's not human." He thought for a moment, scrunching his forehead. "Is she the blue dragon we saw?"

"What? Why would you think that?"

"I saw your wings. They kind of look like dragon wings. You could be half-dragon."

"I can honestly say that I'm not half-dragon. And my mom's not that blue dragon either."

"Did you see the blue dragon?" he asked.

"No."

"What are you, if you're not half-dragon?"

"What did I _just _say about my family?"

"Okay, okay." He looked over my shoulder, squinting behind his glasses. I turned to see my little brother making an ass of himself, trying to win Catherine over, and couldn't help laughing. Damn, it was a good thing he was gay, because Jasper was completely hapless around any female that wasn't either Aiya, Blue, or related to us. He was just too awkward. I'd seen it before, but this would never stop being funny.

"Hey, come on, let's go rescue your lady friend there from my brother," I said, choking on snorts of laughter. Brendan let me pull him to his feet and we ran over to Jasper and Catherine.

"She's not my girlfriend, by the way," he mentioned between labored puffs. "Just my friend." There was a hint of wariness there, a hint of holding something back. It reminded me of Jas in the days before he'd come out to me.

"Are you gay?" I blurted. _Facepalm. _It wasn't any of my business.

"W-what?"

"Just a question, dude. It's okay if you are. Jasper's gay, and I'm not homophobic."

"I…okay. Yeah. I am. How…" _puff. _"How could…" _puff _"you pick that…" _puff _"up?" _wheeze. Hack. Puff. _He started coughing and couldn't stop.

I stopped in my tracks. "Just a feeling. Are you okay?"

Brendan held up a hand, gasping for air, and fumbled in his pocket for a little red plastic thing with a white cap. He sucked on it frantically while I stared, freaked out and confused. What in the world was he doing? Did all humans do this?

"I'm fine," he said, shoving the red thing in his pocket. "Just asthma."

"What's asthma?"

"You…you're kidding, right?" He looked at my face and decided I wasn't.

Catherine, Brendan's friend, looked over at us and concern showed in her face upon realizing what had happened to him. Whatever _had _happened. She hurried over to him, and Jasper followed her.

"Are you okay?" Catherine asked Brendan worriedly.

He smiled at her. "I'm fine. Now, anyway. Just asthma. Which Galen for some reason has never heard of. But I have my inhaler, so it's all good."

"Half-breeds don't really _get_ sick," I explained.

"Almost never, anyway," commented Jasper.

"Half-breeds?" Catherine asked tentatively. "Is that…what you are?" Her voice was soft, a little frightened.

Jasper gasped jokingly. "She talks! It's a miracle!"

She scowled faintly, obviously not appreciating Jasper's sense of humor.

For the first time, I realized that even when we looked human, even when we were _part_ human, _actual_ humans might find us intimidating. And it made sense. We were two six-foot-plus guys, huge by human standards – at 6'4", I towered over every human I'd ever seen. One of us had recently tackled her friend, who was half our size; the other was currently in the process of creeping the hell out of her. Plus, she'd seen our wings and knew that not only were we strange and intimidating, we weren't even the same species as her.

I smiled, trying to ease her fears. "Yeah. That's what we are."

She nodded and took a deep breath. "Okay."

"So, we really need some confirmation from you guys that you won't tell anyone what you've seen today," Jasper said.

"What about the blue dragon?" Brendan asked. "Because I already told Galen we wouldn't tell anyone. And I meant it."

"Good," said Jasper in relief. "Your girlfriend wouldn't talk to me."

"That, my friend, is because you're an idiot around girls," I teased. He smacked me on the back of the head.

"Not like I have any reason _to _have finesse with that many girls," he replied with a shrug.

"Catherine's not my girlfriend, you know," Brendan interjected, a little more confidently now that he knew we weren't homophobic.

"Yeah?" asked Jasper, a hint of hope in his voice. Every other gay guy in the pride but this one adult couple was closeted, so he'd never dated. Finding one, for him, must have been amazing.

"I'm gay," Brendan said, his voice growing stronger.

"That's cool," replied Jasper, obviously struggling to stay casual. Oh yeah, my little brother had a crush. I had to suppress a smile. Being gay wasn't easy when you were draki – or human, for that matter. The dude deserved a break, and if a human guy would make my brother happy, that was fine with me.


End file.
